Netherworld

by Lisa Morton

  Diana nodded. “I killed it. But first I….” She hesitated, then finally went on: “I did things I’m not proud of, but I…was effective. I obtained information that a Netherworld demon called Aeshma is planning on leading an invasion of this world on October 31st. He’ll be commanding an army that will come through one or more of the gateways. He’s also the one holding my husband.”

  Yi-kin fell back in his chair. His cup rattled against the saucer balanced on his lap, and he sat both aside on the table. “We cannot close all gateways by that time….”

  “No,” Diana agreed, “and they know that. That’s why we have to try something else…or, rather, I do. I won’t force you to do anything. In fact, I’d almost prefer you said no—”

  “What will you do?”

  “I can’t close all the gateways, but maybe I can stop this Aeshma before he comes through.”

  “But Aeshma is in Netherworld….”

  “Yes,” Diana said, and she finally looked right at him as she added, “that’s why I have to go through a gateway into the Netherworld.”

  Yi-kin nearly jumped from his seat in excitement. “Is it possible?!”

  Diana shrugged. “Truthfully, I don’t know. I’ll need to do some research, but…well, we don’t have much time….”

  “Then we should go soon. Go now,” Yi-kin said.

  “You understand, Yi-kin, that this will be the most dangerous thing we’ve yet done. Our chances for survival will be quite slim.”

  Yi-kin thought briefly, then answered, “Chances for two are better than one.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Yi-kin nodded vigorously. “I am sure. If you go, I go.”

  Although Diana knew she may have just guaranteed the young man’s untimely death, she was secretly very relieved, and felt a rush of pride for Yi-kin. “Then we both go.”

  Mina looked up blearily, uttered a bemused meow, and leapt into Yi-kin’s lap; once there, she turned to look intently at Diana, who laughed lightly.

  “Of course, Mina,” she said, correcting herself, “we all go.”

  Diana’s real purpose in coming to London had been to visit Isadora, but first there was something else she wanted to do.

  And so, on the afternoon of Saturday, September 4th, she arrived at the offices of the Hinton Trading Company with Yi-kin, only to be told that Sir Edward was spending the day at his private club.

  Diana knew the name and location of the place—he’d spoken fondly of it on numerous occasions—and she arrived there twenty minutes after leaving his offices. The bellman, of course, tried to assure her this was a private men’s club, but when he found his arm twisted most uncomfortably by Yi-kin, he reached over with the other and opened the door for her.

  Yi-kin released him and followed as Diana strode angrily through the luxurious parlors, causing cries of male outrage.

  “Is that a woman? With a Chinaman?”

  One young man who was dressed in an expensive suit but smelled of liquor stood and leered at Diana while pulling at his lengthy mustache. “Madame, I’m afraid the house you seek is in the East End.”

  “I’ve no doubt you’re well acquainted with it, sir,” she said, leaving the man huffing as she and Yi-kin strode past him.

  A man dressed as a waiter approached and grabbed Diana’s elbow firmly. Before he could utter a word, Yi-kin deftly disengaged his hold. “She is great lady,” he hissed, leaving the attendant to stare in disbelief.

  She finally found Edward in one of the large sitting rooms, smoking a cigar with several companions, and enjoying a hearty laugh—which died in his throat as he saw her striding toward him, with a young Chinese man a few paces behind.

  “Now see, her, Madame, this is a private club,” an obese, bushy-browed companion of Edward’s said to her, rising to his feet indignantly as he added, with a look towards Yi-kin, “a private club for English men.”

  Without taking her eyes from the mortified Edward, Diana told the man, “My business is entirely with Sir Edward Hinton.”

  “You sit,” Yi-kin added.

  The man sat down abruptly, as if his knees had been kicked out from under him.

  “Diana, now see here—” Edward started, but his tone was quiet, his voice tremulous.

  “Don’t see here me, Eddie. I know full well now what your fortune rests upon, and an ill-gotten one it is—”

  One of the other listeners interrupted. “What’s she talking about, Sir Edward?”

  Diana said, nearly shouting, “Opium trade, that’s what I’m talking about. The attempted enslavement of an entire people, only to satisfy your own greed.” She threw a hand back to Yi-kin. “These people, the Chinese people. You lied to me, Eddie. You told me you traded English woolens for their tea—”

  “That was no lie!” Edward responded. “We do trade woolens—”

  “And what percentage of your trade is that? Ten percent? Five? Your real trade is in opium. And you’re little more than a contraband dealer. William would have been ashamed of you, Eddie, deeply ashamed.”

  And with that she turned on her heel and stalked out again, counting on Yi-kin to follow.

  She was met at the door by two bobbies, just entering, but she waved a hand to them and lightly brushed past. “No need, gentlemen—we’re leaving this opium den, never fear.”

  The bobbies turned and shared a puzzled glance, and let her go.

  Diana and Yi-kin climbed into their waiting cab, then she gave Isadora’s address to the driver and fell back against her seat, still huffing. At one point she looked over and saw Yi-kin eyeing her intently.

  “Dui m jue,” she offered, apologizing.

  Yi-kin barely stifled a laugh.

  Isadora was happy to see Diana again, but was positively thrilled by Yi-kin; Orientalism had been much in vogue throughout Europe recently, and she thought Yi-kin far more interesting than a mere chinosserie or vase. She asked him a great many questions about China and her people, and Yi-kin did his best to answer.

  Finally Diana had to step in, and she told Isadora that it was very important that she hear any news the medium might have received regarding the Netherworld.

  Isadora confirmed that the Netherworld had been the source of a great deal of activity lately, and that she had received further whisperings of William. Diana asked if she would enter a trance now, and she agreed.

  They waited quietly as Isadora closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She held Diana’s hand, hoping that would assist in obtaining messages specifically relating to Diana’s questions.

  After a few moments, she began to moan softly. That was something new; she seemed to be in pain, which Diana had never seen her experience before. Her head rolled slightly, once to the left, then to the right, and she began to mutter.

  “Aeshma….”

  Diana and Yi-kin exchanged a look at that; Diana had been careful not to mention that name in Isadora’s presence.

  “No, not Aeshma…that’s an older name…no, the name is…Asmodeus.”

  Diana gasped.

  “What?” whispered Yi-kin.

  “Asmodeus is a famous Biblical demon….” she answered, but trailed off as she anxiously awaited Isadora’s next words.

  “You have one chance to save William, and stop the invasion: You must enter the Netherworld through the gateway at Cruachan before midnight on Samhain. If you do this, Asmodeus will stop the invasion, but only if you enter through Cruachan on the hallowed eve….”

  Cruachan…the name sent a chill through Diana. Cruachan was one of the most famous gateways described in The Book of Gateways, Conjurations and Banishments, sometimes known as the Hell-Gate of Ireland. For hundreds of years it had been the center of legends, of stories of murder, magic and madness. The ancient Celts had believed it opened each Samhain (or Hallowe’en), and poured forth a murderous horde of evil fairies and spirits. Even the modern Irish thought it held the “Cave of Cats,” a mysterious underground passage which led to the realm of fairies. Diana hadn
’t sealed this gateway up ‘til now because she thought it might need to be done—as the Hertfordshire one had been—on Hallowe’en.

  And because she’d been afraid of it.

  Suddenly Isadora’s eyes rolled up in her head, exposing whites that gleamed almost as if lit from within. The air around her abruptly dropped at least twenty degrees, and was permeated with a horrible odor. Yi-kin and Diana both shot up out of their chairs Diana yanked her hand from a grip suddenly gone icy cold.

  They stumbled back in shock as Isadora’s chair—with her still in it—began to rise upward. Six inches above the floor…a foot…two feet…meanwhile, the poor woman writhed in the chair wildly, throwing herself from side to side, uttering something that could only be described as a lunatic howl of fury.

  “What is this?”

  “I don’t know,” she told him, “I’ve never seen its like.”

  Suddenly Isadora’s eyes spun down in their sockets and fixed on Diana with piercing malice; when she spoke, the voice was plainly not hers, but higher, and with a terrible mocking tone:

  “We’re all waiting to welcome you over here, Diana. We have some very special things planned for you; I, in particular, look forward to finishing what we started, that night in the farmhouse.”

  Diana’s heart was in her throat, then she swallowed it down and gritted her teeth. The last time she’d heard that voice, it’d been shrieking in agony as she dismembered its owner. “And I look forward to repeating what we did in the barn,” she answered.

  The reply infuriated the thing in Isadora, and it opened her mouth and poured forth a deafening roar. They both clamped hands over their ears from the pain.

  Isadora fell from the chair and her limbs jerked. Diana and Yi-kin crouched, cowering. The medium’s hands shot out, spasming, and the two observers jumped back. Isadora reached down to her desk, and twitching fingers fell upon a long, metallic letter opener. They tensed for a fight until Isadora reversed her hold on the letter opener, turning the point in.

  “No!” Diana cried out—

  —too late to stop the demon from driving the letter opener into Isadora’s abdomen.

  The malevolence vanished from Isadora’s eyes, replaced instantly by the shock of pain. Her mouth gaped in a silent cry, and she clutched at the horrible blade buried deep within her.

  “No—Isadora—!” Diana cried out, trying to staunch the blood from her friend’s wound with her own hand.

  It was hopeless. Isadora’s breath was slowing, coming out in tiny, convulsive gasps, and her own hands dropped away from the weapon, too weak to be held up any longer. Her head rolled towards Diana, and for a moment their eyes met.

  “Dear God….” was all Isadora said.

  And then she died.

  Diana tried in vain to rally her, but finally Yi-kin gently pulled her away. “She is dead,” he told Diana.

  She stood up, not caring that her hands were covered with blood, or that she’d have to deal with the police. At that moment her only thought was:

  Revenge.

  The police arrived thirty minutes later and listened to their explanation: neither mentioning the demonic possession, explaining only that Isadora had seemed distraught and had stabbed herself before they could react. Although the police were somewhat wary of the young Chinese, Lady Furnaval’s standing was accepted as above suspicion, and besides, they knew the medium bore the reputation of unmarried older woman who supposedly spoke to spirits. It took them only a short conversation with one another to accept the explanation of suicide, and allow Diana and Yi-kin to go on their way.

  Although Diana knew exactly what they had just witnessed, she could answer few of Yi-kin’s other questions: She had no idea if the voice they’d heard had actually—somehow—been that of the incubus she believed she’d killed, or some other entity impersonating it; she couldn’t explain why Isadora had never been possessed before (although she began to realize, with an acute discomfort of guilt, that Isadora had never before held her hand during any contact with the Netherworld). More importantly, she could not tell Yi-kin he was being ridiculous when he warned her that the Cruachan gateway obviously led to a trap.

  What she did admit to him was that she had one of the world’s finest libraries on the occult back at her estate in Derby, and she needed to begin searching that library immediately.

  Although if Stephen Chappell was right, no amount of information would be enough to save them when they stepped through the gateway at Cruachan.

  Chapter XXV

  September 5-8, 1880

  Derby, England

  They arrived back at her estate the following day.

  Diana was so moved that, upon stepping from the carriage, she nearly fell to her knees and kissed the earth beneath her feet.

  Howe greeted her warmly, remarking on her tanned skin (“no more of that now,” he chided her gently); he offered a heartfelt thanks and welcome to Yi-kin, whom Diana’s letters had already described; and he even picked up Mina for a cuddle.

  Diana immediately offered Yi-kin his choice of a suite of rooms in the manor, or his own small guesthouse on the grounds, and he chose the former. Diana suspected it was at least partly because he’d grown very attached to Mina.

  After settling in, Diana took Howe aside for several hours and told of all their adventures. He asked to see both her buckshot wounds (which had healed nicely), and the scars on her left arm (which now totaled twelve). He agreed with Diana that it was suicide to enter the Netherworld through the Cruachan gateway, but offered to accompany her if she went. She thanked him, but told him that she needed him on this side, in case she failed—he would still have knowledge of the nature of the invaders, and could perhaps lead the counter-offensive, if need be.

  She also asked him to contact her London solicitors to arrange services for Isadora, and learn if she had any relations that needed taking care of. Isadora had never spoken of any family, but Diana was determined to do whatever she could to honor her friend’s memory.

  The next day Diana fell into the research. She started with Asmodeus: Originally known by the ancient Persians as Aeshma, he was the spirit of lust and anger, and king of the demons. He once fell in love with a human woman named Sarah, and killed each of her seven husbands, thus earning the description of a destroyer of matrimonial tranquility.

  Diana thought he’d certainly done his best to destroy her own.

  Asmodeus was ancient and powerful, and Diana had no idea if her demon protections or talismans would work against him. Banishing him was especially questionable, since demons were normally exiled back to the Netherworld. Asmodeus would require banishing to Hell, something Diana had no experience with it. Stories of humans who had traveled through gateways were horrifying. There were literally hundreds of tales of unwary souls who had stumbled across sidhe, or fairy mounds, on Hallowe’en night; most had never been heard from again, although some had been seen again as tortured spirits. There were a few common threads in all of the stories: Those who partook of food or drink in the fairy realm would be trapped there forever, never aging; simple charms like a needle worn in a collar or sleeve were effective protections; and time passed quite differently in the Netherworld than it did in the mortal world.

  Bolstered by this new information, Diana was growing in confidence, She presented her findings to Yi-kin and Howe, and told them she believed they should make a test.

  “A test…?” Yi-kin asked.

  “It’s only the seventh of September today, meaning we have plenty of time until Hallowe’en. I want to step through a gateway right away. This week, in fact.”

  Yi-kin and Howe both gaped at her in disbelief.

  “You can’t be serious, m’Lady.”

  “I am, Howe. We need to know if it’s even possible, for one thing. We need to know if we’ll need special equipment or clothing—”

  Howe muttered, “Might I suggest suits of armor?”

  Diana ignored him and continued: “There’s a gateway in Cornwall st
ill open. I propose to go there promptly, and step through for exactly one minute. I will carry a watch and time myself.”

  Yi-kin immediately said, “I go through, not you.”

  “I appreciate the gesture, Yi-kin, but surely you understand that I can’t let you do that—”

  Howe cut her off, with the most anger she’d ever seen him display. “And you, m’Lady, are far too valuable to risk in such an experiment. We’re all in agreement with the need for some test, but you won’t be much use to us if you return as a spirit. Yi-kin or myself are expendable. You’re not.”

  “None of us are expendable,” she argued.

  “But you are the general,” Yi-kin said. “General never fights with soldiers.”

  “He’s right,” Howe agreed.

  Diana turned her back and paced to the fireplace. She considered all this for a moment, then finally turned back to them. “Very well. We’ll talk about this further tomorrow, and decide then who it should be.”

  Howe breathed an audible sigh of relief, and Yi-kin smiled.

  “Me,” he boasted.

  Yi-kin was awakened early the next morning by a knocking on his door. He leapt from bed, instantly alert, and ran to the door in his undergarments, opening it to reveal Howe. The butler looked very distressed, and was extending a sheet of paper towards Yi-kin.

  “The daft woman’s gone to do it anyway,” he complained. “She left this in the kitchen.”

  Yi-kin took the note and struggled through Diana’s flowing handwriting:

  My Dears Howe and Yi-kin:

  I’m sorry, but surely you realize I’d never be able to forgive myself if I let either of you go through the gateway and something happened. I already have William and Isadora on my conscience; I’m not sure I can bear more deaths.

  I’ve taken Mina and a watch and gone to the Cornwall gateway. I will time myself very precisely, and step through for exactly one minute. Please remember that time may run very differently in the Netherworld than it does here, so don’t panic if I haven’t returned by the end of the day.